5 Analysis of ten organic product markets in Europe in 2001
5.6 The organic beef market
5.6.7 Prices for organic beef
The farmer prices for organic and conventional beef are shown in Figure 5-47. From Greece an extraordinary high farmer price was reported being almost three times higher than the EU average price of 312 €/100 kg. However, a big part of the Greek beef production is veal which is sold for significantly higher prices than beef. Other countries with above average farmer prices were Belgium, Spain, Italy and Luxembourg. With the exception of Spain this can be explained with the low degree of self-sufficiency for organic beef in these countries (see Table 5-18).
Figure 5-47 Farmer prices for organic and conventional beef in €/100 kg in 2001
850
500 461
400 393
354 331 325
280 279 254
218 200 187 312
460
213 596
382
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
GR BE ES IT LU UK FR IE DE FI AT DK NL SE EU SI CZ CH NO
Organic farmer price Conventional farmer price --- = 20% above or below the EU average
The organic beef market
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Farmers’ beef prices were lowest in Sweden, the Netherlands and in Denmark. Prices for beef are linked to milk prices. In countries with high milk production beef is produced as a by-product. The level of quality of this beef is not very high and therefore prices are low.
Another fact influencing the farmer prices was the low share of beef sales sold with an organic label. Only 68 percent of the organically produced beef was able to be sold as organic product; the rest had to be sold on the conventional market due to an EU-wide supply surplus for organic beef.
In Figure 5-48 the premiums of the farmer prices for organic beef over the farmer prices for conventional beef are presented. As beef production is closely connected to milk production, low farmer price premiums for organic beef were mainly surveyed in countries with a strong organic milk production. This accounted for Austria, Ireland, Finland, Sweden, France, the Netherlands and Denmark. In all six countries, farmer price premiums for organic beef were more than 20 percent below the EU average of 49 percent in 2001.
In all other surveyed EU countries farmer price premiums for organic beef were clearly above the EU average. The highest organic farmer price premium was reported from Spain with 190 percent. It is obvious that no countries reported farmer price premiums around the EU average. The surveyed countries belonged either to the group of countries with price premiums more than 20 percent above the EU average or to the group with premiums more than 20 percent below the EU average.
Figure 5-48 Farmer price premiums for organic over conventional beef prices in percent in 2001
190
129 113
98 85
69 59
33 30
26 21 20 18 17
49 61
9 29
11 0
20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
ES UK GR LU IT BE DE AT IE FI SE FR NL DK EU CZ SI CH NO
--- = 20% above or below the EU average
The organic beef market
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As examples of the product group organic beef, Table 5-19 presents the consumer prices for organic rump steak and organic minced beef surveyed in the year 2001. Organic rump steak was the most expensive meat product surveyed in the framework of this study. In 2001, on average 22.51 €/kg were achieved. Four of the EU countries reported much lower prices. An extremely low consumer price for organic rump steak was surveyed in Finland with only 10.67 €/kg. In Austria, Italy and Sweden prices between 16 and 17 €/kg were recorded.
For organic minced beef an EU average consumer price of 9.70 €/kg was surveyed. This was undercut in Finland and in Sweden with prices between 6 and 7 €/kg. Sweden was the country with the lowest farmer prices for organic beef in 2001. This translated into low consumer prices. Clearly higher prices were reported from France, Ireland and from the United Kingdom.
Table 5-19 Consumer prices for organic rump steak and for minced beef in €/kg in 2001
Country Rump steak Minced beef
EU countries
AT 17.42 u 8.62
BE 20.35 10.44
DE 23.46 9.26 1
DK 26.83 10.06
ES nd nd
FI 10.67 u 7.35 u
FR 22.65 12.42 t
GR nd nd
IE 23.20 11.75 t
IT 16.41 u nd
LU 25.04 nd
NL 18.75 9.92
PT nd nd
SE 16.32 u 6.61 u
UK 25.85 12.89 t
Weighted
EU average2 22.51 9.70
Accession countries
CZ 5.01 3.24
SI nd nd
EFTA countries
CH 32.74 13.12
NO 18.64 12.54
t = more than 20% above the EU average u = more than 20% below the EU average
1 Figure from the Zentrale Markt- und Preisberichtstelle ZMP
2 Weighted by organic consumption
The organic beef market
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Table 5-20 shows the consumer price premiums for organic over conventional rump steak and minced beef prices. For organic rump steak the surveyed consumer price premiums showed a strong variation between countries. The lowest price premiums among the EU countries were reported from Denmark and the Netherlands with five and nine percent, respectively. They were highest in Austria and France with 87 and 86 percent, respectively.
The weighted EU average accounted for 40 percent in 2001. Interestingly, the price premium recorded in Switzerland was very low with only two percent. There was almost no difference between organic and conventional rump steak prices in this country. For organic minced beef an EU average of 45 percent was calculated. For this meat product, the variation of price premiums was not as strong as for organic rump steak. In Austria, Ireland and Sweden low price premiums were surveyed, whereas Belgium and the United Kingdom stood out because of their high consumer price premiums for organic minced beef.
Table 5-20 Consumer price premiums for organic rump steak and organic minced beef in percent in 2001
Country Rump steak Minced beef
EU countries
AT 87 t 23 u
BE 54 t 78 t
DE 29 u 47 1
DK 5 u 47
ES nd nd
FI 25 u 47
FR 86 t 41
GR nd nd
IE 79 t 20 u
IT 50 t nd
LU 70 t nd
NL 9 u 54
PT nd nd
SE 16 u 22 u
UK 75 t 61 t
Weighted
EU average2 40 45
Accession countries
CZ 15 22
SI nd nd
EFTA countries
CH 2 23
NO 48 32
t = more than 20% above the EU average u = more than 20% below the EU average
1 Figure from the Zentrale Markt- und Preisberichtstelle ZMP
2 Weighted by organic consumption
The organic market for sheep and goat meat
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